Path to citizenship beckons cash to McHenry County

November 20, 2010

Amid the cornfields and upstart subdivisions in McHenry County, a debate is under way over a $52 million vision for the future -- all-American in concept but fueled by investors from places like Dubai and China.

A sprawling sports complex planned in the village of Lakewood would feature baseball fields, bicycle trails and restaurants meant to draw families from throughout the region.

In return for kicking in $500,000 apiece, foreign investors in the project would jump to the head of the nation's often-tangled line for legal immigration and win a route toward U.S. citizenship for themselves and their families.

The arrangement comes courtesy of an arcane but increasingly popular federal immigration program that has provided a ready source of cash to foster development in a weak economy.

But at a time when all aspects of immigration are subject to debate, the dramatic growth of the "EB-5" visa program has also sparked resentment, particularly from opponents of the scores of projects sprouting across the country -- including an NBA basketball arena in New York and a ski resort in Vermont.

"Nobody here wants to sell their birthright to a foreign investor just because he has money," said Al Stenstrom, who lives in a subdivision near where the McHenry County sports complex would be built. "Excuse my French, but, as a nation, we're becoming whores."

Launched in 1990, the EB-5 program was designed to stimulate the U.S. economy by attracting foreign investors able to create new jobs. Nearly 10,000 visas are set aside every year that serve as a pathway to U.S. citizenship for the investors, their spouses and dependent children.

Most of the recent growth has come under an initiative that enables third-party brokers to profit from the investments by creating federally approved "regional centers" that facilitate projects in areas of high unemployment.

Since 2007, the number of regional centers has grown by more than 10 times, to 117 -- with applications pending for 88 more, federal immigration officials said. During the 2009 fiscal year, 4,218 investors and their relatives got their EB-5 visas, more than five times the number in 2007.

But with the spurt of popularity have come concerns of fraud that hark back to the late 1990s, when brokers of some regional centers were caught trying to steal millions of dollars in investments.